


Quantum Fiction

by Llewcie



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)
Genre: Gateways between universes, Grigg what are you doing, Handwavy Science, Hannibal Extended Universe, Healing, Kissing, M/M, Portals, Quantum Computers, Sharing a Bed, Strange Book Club, the softest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-06-16 21:45:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15446529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Llewcie
Summary: Grigg is in Hong Kong working on a quantum computing project.  Kaecilius is waking up after a long torturous imprisonment.  They crash into each other.





	1. Chapter 1

_"The world is not what it ought to be. Humanity longs for the eternal, for a world beyond time, because time is what enslaves us. Time is an insult. Death is an insult. Doctor, We don't seek to rule this world... We seek to save it."_

This is a story about a sorcerer by the name of Kaecilius, who lost his wife and son and sought to recover them through magic. Grief made him, honestly, a little stupid, and he allowed the primordial being Dormammu to lie to him. Kaecilius was ultimately trapped by those lies, his humanity stolen, his will stripped from him along with his flesh. For an age he floated insensate in the darkness, called to do the bidding of his new master in the conquering of new worlds, and when not in use, left to his own quiet madness.

And this would have been his fate forever, had not Dr. Stephen Strange done something which Kaecilius, had he been aware, would not have considered a kindness. Somewhere deep in the heart of him, buried under the blackened shell of his body, Stephen Strange, wielding the infinity stone in the Eye of Agamotto, managed, possibly on accident, to lock away a shard of Kaecilius’ consciousness. Bound by time, it lay buried in the timeless nothingness like a jewel without light to make it glimmer. But as he was called out again and again to worlds where time existed, Stephen having actually not been all that good at sorcery yet, the lock on his mind began to fragment and the light began to shine in.

He began to remember.

The pain came first. 

***

Grigg Harris didn’t consider his wealth to be one of his best features, although he was one of the wealthiest individual hardware designers in the states. He was proud of his 10 mile record on his bike (27 minutes 17 seconds) and he was delighted by his library of vintage sci-fi comics and pulp magazines. He thought of himself as a fairly decent conversationalist, and enjoyed the friendship of a wide variety of people. Most of all, he was proud of Quantum Fiction, his research and development company, which invested in people who were innovating in the field of quantum computing, and made connections between labs and inventors to assist in the development of ever-smaller, ever-faster computers. Wealth was not as interesting as people and their ideas, and he would cross the world for a good story. 

He travelled a lot for his work, which took him away from his cozy little flat in Long Beach. This trip to Hong Kong had been interesting so far. He had never been to China before, and the work being done, tucked away in basements and ancient temples of pre-occupation Hong Kong, rivaled anything that the official companies like Alibaba and IBM were accomplishing. It was fascinating to watch the technology take shape in the ancient places of the city. The juxtaposition gave him a strange energy. It was the machines themselves, he knew, that unsettled as much as they thrilled him. Quantum computing was not like binary-- it was not simply ‘off’ and ‘on’, but both those settings and everything in between them. Each node had theoretically infinite possibilities, the only limit the size of the processor. Their processor was on the large size, running 49 qubits, but the noise interference was still a problem, drowning out the computations and giving everyone in the room motion sickness and headaches. They took a lot of breaks. He was taking one now, walking into the neighborhoods surrounding the temple, to see if he could settle himself. 

It was never really dark in Hong Kong, even in the older neighborhoods. Light seeped from every pore of the city, bending around corners and illuminating the edges of things. The shape of the city further emanated a strange music, and as Grigg walked he felt waves of its dissonance flow over him, voice and machine and ambience. Like the light, it was faint at first, but as he walked further it grew in weight against his ears, until one throbbing melody drowned out all the others. It sounded oddly familiar, like one of the quantum programs they had been running earlier made into music, notes in infinite fractions between notes. No one else seemed to hear it. Several other people were walking on the same streets, and nobody else looked concerned or even curious. 

The discordant melody became increasingly invasive, pulsating behind his temples until he felt sick and dizzy. When he tried to turn around and find his way back to the private home where he was sleeping, nothing looked familiar. In fact, nothing looked _familiar_. Doors and walls lost their door-ness and their wall-ness, until he felt as if he were looking past everything he recognised into something unbelievably disconcerting. People bled into columns of light, and the noise of speaking and laughing and pop music became the drone of a far-off ocean. 

Grigg stumbled and fell, and stayed on the ground, his hands stinging from the gravel that scraped his skin. At least something felt solid beneath him as the world unhinged. He pressed his hands to his ears, but that didn’t stop the awful cacophony. Above him, the quality of the light changed, growing more intense and darker, until the entire area looked like some nightmarish glow-in-the-dark mini golf universe. Enormous luminous pink and green and purple globes floated above him, tied together with horrible twisting umbilical cords. The sense of space was vast and his mind shuttered, blocking it out. He opened his mouth to scream.

And then. 

...gninnur nageb gnihtyreve neht dnA  
Backwa r d s.

Columns of light became people reversing their steps. A car rolled down the street backwards, turning neatly around a corner. A man pulled whole noodles from his mouth and placed them in a bowl of broth. 

The horrible, crawling melody broke off, along with the terrible vision of fluorescent moons. In its place was the loud sound of breathing. Grigg realized it was his own. Slowly the normal colors and sounds reasserted themselves. He stood shakily as the world moved past him in reverse. No one paid him any mind.

Wait.

A shape stood crouched before him, wisps of smoke drifting upwards from its black, dully shining surface. It turned its eyes up to Grigg. Deep within the blackened sockets were glints of amber. As Grigg stood frozen in shock, it froze as well. They stared at one another, less than a meter away, as the world slowed to a stop around them both.

The shape was humanoid, its skin reflecting a soft glow like dull black leather. Completely hairless and smooth, it was emaciated, ribs and joints protruding grotesquely. Grigg lifted a hand to reach out to it, and the human-shape mirrored him. Startled, Grigg dropped his hand, and the human-shape did as well. They stared at each other for a long while, and then Grigg lifted his hand and moved forward, unsure of his intent. Their fingertips were a meter apart, and then a foot, and then inches. Grigg and the creature hovered, suspended for a heartbeat, and then Grigg took a deep breath and closed the last little gap.

A breath pressed between them, a flash of discordant music and noise and light, and then Grigg felt cool fingertips against his own. 

The creature collapsed into him, and Grigg lifted it up so that it didn’t fall to the asphalt. It was much lighter than it should have been, given its size, as if it were somehow hollow inside. Grigg found himself walking back towards his residence, the body in his arms in a wedding carry. His mind protested as his body continued onward, but the body itself offered no resistance. Around him, the world began to slowly reassert itself, time stuttering to a stop and then crawling forward again. 

Not once did he think, _what am I doing?_ It seemed utterly necessary to carry this alien, emaciated shape to safety. Not until he reached the private home where he was staying did he begin to wonder about this strange compulsion, and it wasn’t until the thing was resting on his own bed that his mind began to clear, and he began to wonder just what the hell had happened.


	2. Chapter 2

Grigg left it there and moved to the kitchen, baffled and feeling a bit like he was in the pages of one of his sci-fi magazines, maybe _Weird Terror_ , or Chamber of Chills. What would the hero do now? He glanced around the small kitchen for ideas, and his gaze landed on the coffee maker. Coffee was always a good idea, and more so since the adrenalin was wearing off, leaving him tired and a little afraid. So he made a pot of coffee, and then texted the lab to let them know he was turning in for the night. A text back from Annie acknowledged, and read, _smthg odd 1hr qnoise to nada back up again weird cu2mro._ He interpreted: Something odd happened an hour ago; quantum noise went down to nothing but is now back to normal. Part of him wanted to go immediately back to the lab, but the rest of him knew what had happened an hour ago was currently in his bed. He filled two mugs with coffee, second-guessed himself and grabbed a bottle of water with his teeth, and then made his way back to the bedroom.

The body was still there. He set the mugs down and then the water, and then pulled up a chair to the bedside. For a long time it was perfectly still, and he began to wonder who he could call to help him get rid of a body. By the time he had worked himself up in to a frantic mess, wondering if he could actually force himself to do CPR on a dried-up corpse, the body gave a great shudder, and began to breathe. A moment later, it opened its eyes. In the soft light of the bedside lamp, they were a warm amber, like they had been in the street. 

They stared at each other until Grigg felt awkward. He raised a hand and placed his fingertips against its upper arm. The skin was cool. “You should probably drink some water. Um, I don’t think you have enough liquid in you…” Was that rude? Was the creature supposed to look like this? “I mean, you look a little dehydrated.” He squeezed the arm to emphasize. It felt like skin wrapped around a bone. The imprint of his fingers was clearly outlined in lighter skin for a few seconds before fading. 

There was a long silence from the bed, with an occasional shiver. The creature closed its eyes. He tried again to engage it, remembering that it was important to keep victims of trauma talking. “My name is Grigg. You’re in my apartment; at least it’s mine for the moment… well, longer than a moment, more like a few weeks. But it’s private, is what I’m trying to say.” He paused and thought that over. “Not that you are in any danger, I mean. I didn’t want to imply that the privacy was for nefarious purposes.“ He sighed. “Unless you wanted to hurt me, which in case you do you should know that my friends are expecting me. Um, in a bit. Not that you look up to taking a swing at anyone.”

Those warm amber eyes were back on him again. “Do you ever stop talking?”

Grigg was in the middle of a big gulp of too-hot coffee, and sputtered it all over the sheets. He tried to slow his heart as he swabbed at the spatter with the tail of his t-shirt. He smiled sheepishly. “You’re not the first person to ask me that. Um, sorry for spitting coffee on you.” 

“By whom?” Its voice was rich and warm, and very human. A northern European accent colored its vowels. 

“Ex-girlfriend.”

“Her loss.”

Grigg blushed, and felt ridiculous for it. Was this blackened skeleton man from another dimension flirting with him? He cleared his throat. “She didn’t think so.”

They fell silent again, Grigg breathing easier than before. He figured he might as well get the most awkward questions out of the way. “So… are you human?”

“I am. Originally from Copenhagen.”

“The one in Denmark?” 

The creature-- the human smiled, very briefly. “The very same.”

Grigg nodded, feeling the ground solidify under him. Slightly. “Do you have a name?”

“I do.” Grigg raised his eyebrows, both of them, inviting confidences. The human blinked and said, “My name is Kaecilius.”

The ground crumbled beneath Grigg again. “No shit.”

“No shit.”

It had been over a year ago, but had been in major papers, how Hong Kong had been attacked by a sorcerer who had tried to unravel reality. Some people-- those just outside the blast zone-- remembered, and anyone who was inside the blast zone didn’t. The sorcerer had been banished by a coordinated international effort, and all had been put back to normal again. Grigg knew about it because his quantum computers had lost their little digital minds for a space of about twenty minutes, all across the world, and had recorded the whole crazy thing. 

Grigg swallowed. “So are you still… evil?” Would an evil person admit they were evil? He didn’t know, but he thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. “Maybe that’s a stupid question…”

Kaecilius looked at him for a few long moments, and then closed his eyes. “I am nothing but ashes and regret now. If that eases your concern. Although I had hoped… what year is it?”

“Um, 2018.”

Kaecilius nodded, looking down to mask what looked suspiciously like tears in the dim light. “In infinite time there is infinite suffering.” He turned his back on Grigg, rolling clumsily over to face the wall, and would say nothing else.

Still, Grigg sat by the bedside for a long time. For one, he was wondering what to do with the depressed, burnt-out self-confessed ex-evil sorcerer that had landed in his lap. Not even _Weird Tales From the Other Side_ had covered anything like this. For another, he was wondering where he was going to sleep. The apartment was in total the size of his kitchen back in California. The bedroom fit a double bed and a small wardrobe. Otherwise there was a small bathroom with a shower and a kitchen, and a small sitting room with a table and chair. He thought he might be able to sleep under the table, but his bones hurt. By the time he had had his shower, he was convinced that sharing the bed with a leathery-skinned skeleton-person wouldn’t be so bad. At least the man wasn’t taking up too much space.

He shuffled to the side of the bed. “Um. Kaecilius? Do you mind if I sleep here? I wouldn’t but there’s no other place… I suppose I could squeeze under the kitchen table… but it’s really not that clean?”

Kaecilius said nothing, but reached back and lifted the sheet so that Grigg could slide in behind him. Grigg tried not to touch him, more out of politeness than disgust or discomfort, but the bed was small and he could hardly help it. He settled for crossing his arms over his chest and tucking the sheet between them before allowing himself to relax. Kaecilius didn’t move, barely even breathing, and Grigg stared at his back until it slipped into his dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, one more chapter, now that i've misjudged twice how long this story would take to tell. Thank you to those of you kind enough to leave a comment or a kudo-- I appreciate it so much! Also, I know very little about quantum computers, except that no one really knows how they work, even the people who create them. Who knows what could happen?

Grigg woke early, coming awake out of dreams written in code made of sound into the dull grey light of the city dawn. He remembered first where he was, and shortly after, who was in his bed, wound around him like a fragile vine, close enough that Grigg’s nose was full of the charcoal burnt metal smell of space that clung to his ravaged skin. Sleeping in the same space as a purportedly evil sorcerer hadn’t seemed to do Grigg any harm, and in fact his only ache was a numbness where a sharp cheekbone had been pressed into his right bicep all night. He shifted for a moment, wiggling to judge how inextricably entwined they were without waking Kaecilius up, and thus woke Kaecilius up.

The sorcerer came awake with a sharp intake of breath, his eyes immediately wide and frightened. Grigg braced himself for flailing but Kaecilius froze like a rabbit, muscles locked into place, like a man who had learned that motion was followed by bad things. Grigg pressed his lips together, a pang in his chest. “Hey. You’re safe. It’s just me, Grigg.” Kaecilius’ eyes focused on him, dilated with fear. “You remember what happened last night? You came out of a dark place, landed right on top of me.” He ticked an eyebrow up. “Well, not right on top. That would have been awkward. Not that you weigh much. But it was so weird because everything was moving backwards. Do you remember that? And the people all looked like columns of light. It sounded like the quantum noise we endure every day in the isolation rooms, except it was outside...”

As Grigg talked on, Kaecilius began to relax, his ropy muscles slowly easing. Grigg kept his voice soft, and spoke until he didn’t know what he was saying, until he ran out of breath and Kaecilius reached up to press a finger to his lip. “I’m alright, Grigg. I’m alright.” Grigg nodded, their noses brushing. Kaecilius backed off at once, lifting his legs to free Grigg’s body. “I apologise for my inappropriate closeness,” he murmured. “I don’t remember the last time I was touched with any intent other than violence.” He closed his eyes. “Still, it cannot be pleasant to touch me, with my body in such a state.”

Grigg attempted to school his expression to neutrality. “So this is… not normal for you?”

Kaecilius looked at him, blinked, looked down at his own body, and then looked back up at Grigg. “No.”

“I didn’t want to assume.”

“Very forward thinking of you.”

Grigg grinned at him. “I read a lot of sci-fi. Plus with my work, I’ve had to redefine normal until the word itself is almost meaningless.” He began to ease his body away, feeling curiously reluctant. As they separated, Grigg took his hand from where it had been pressed over the span of Kaecilius’ ribs, where he had reassured himself through the night that he could feel the beating of the sorcerer’s heart. Under his palm was a perfect print of his hand, formed of healthy golden skin. “Look.” He gestured to the print, and Kaecilius twisted his neck to look down. The sorcerer rubbed his long fingers against the skin, and then turned his gaze up to Grigg again with wonder.

“You did this?”

Grigg shook his head. “Not on purpose. I’m no wizard.”

“Sorcerer,” Kaecilius corrected automatically. 

“Not that either.” 

Kaecilius got up from the bed slowly. Even in the dim light of the morning, Grigg could see a few smudged lighter places in his skin: the inside of his thigh where his leg had been wound around Grigg’s, and the inside of his upper arm. Nothing was as clearly outlined as the handprint, though, which Grigg had pressed over Kaecilius’ heart the whole night long. 

“It seems that regardless of your intent, your touch is restorative.” Kaecilius took Grigg’s hand gently in his own, peering at the palm closely and then the back. “And no harm done to you, at least not outwardly.”

“Why would touching you harm me?”

“The corruption of my skin was not natural, but the result of coming into contact with a primordial being who lived in a place that was not compatible with human life.”

“The dark place? The nightmare universe I saw?”

Kaecilius grimaced, his hand squeezing Grigg’s. “A place made of nightmares, and darkness.”

Grigg cast awkwardly around for something to say to ease his companion’s discomfort. “I’m glad you’re here now.”

“Are you? You think I am evil. The man who tried to condemn the world.”

“Why did you?” Grigg realized they were holding hands, but he didn’t mind. Kaecilius looked down at their entwined fingers.

“Love. But it was a love I had already lost, and I could never have gotten it back.” He sighed. “Even if by some chance I had entered into the timeline before her… before her death, she would no longer love the person that I have become.”

“Love makes us do pretty stupid things.” Grigg smiled tentatively at him. Kaecilius just gazed back at him, until Grigg broke eye contact. Rather than trying to salvage that line of thought, he changed the subject. “How are you feeling? Are you hungry? Do you need to use the bathroom? Would you like coffee? It’s terrible, and honestly I think I’ve lost a layer of tooth enamel from drinking it, but it’s coffee.”

Kaecilius held up his hand, stilling the outflow from Grigg’s mouth. “I am very tired. I am hungry. I do not need to use the bathroom, but perhaps a shower. I would love some coffee, but I should eat and drink water first.” He looked down at himself. “And perhaps you have a robe, so that I might cover myself?”

Grigg blushed again, much harder this time. “Oh my gods you’re naked and I didn’t even offer you any clothes. I’m sorry this has just been so weird.”

“For both of us,” Kaecilius replied. But he was smiling, ever so slightly.

***

When Kaecilius tucked himself into the tiny cubicle that had a standing shower, no sooner had the door clicked shut that Grigg got on the phone to Annie. She answered on the first ring. 

“Where the fuck are you, Harris?” 

He fumbled a coffee with one hand. “Annie, what happened last night?”

He heard her shrug-- her phone was pressed against her ear with a shoulder just like his. “It was like I texted. All of the sudden it’s just dead silent in here.”

“Power surge?” They had lost power once but it had taken a while to come back on, and all the computers had needed to be restarted. They had lost several hour’s worth of work.

“Nope. Everything was still running. But like, you know those moments when you’re in a room and your talking to your friend, and everything goes quiet and you’re still talking, so everyone looks at you and you feel like a moron?”

“Yeah, that happens a lot to me,” he admitted.

“Just like that.”

“So there was noise?”

“No. Just.” She paused, clearly having trouble explaining accurately. “This pure note. Like when two particles are synced up, and they connect? More a feeling that a noise. It felt like we achieved communication, but there’s no data to back it up.” She sighed a sigh of pure frustration. “We could be talking to gods, and we’d never know.”

Grigg glanced toward the door of the washroom. “I think we would know.”

“That’s real useful,” she snorted. “You coming in?”

“I’m… Annie, I may not be in for a few days, ok? Are you alright?”

She hummed. “Meet someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Wear a condom!” 

Grigg snorted into the phone. “I promise. Call me if you need me?”

“Unlikely. Be safe.” She rang off, and Grigg set the phone down on the counter, and picked up two cups of coffee. His quantum particle was waiting for him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the wait! Turns out all i needed to do was travel 600 miles and spend time with a dear friend in the sun on a beach to break the writing block.

Grigg brought coffee back into the bedroom, to find Kaecilius gazing at the city outside the small window, his back turned. His skin was mottled charcoal with the soft marks of Grigg’s hands blended in like reverse bruises. A towel was wrapped around his narrow waist twice, and there was still a loose fold left hanging. His hips jutted out so far that water poured over his side would have pooled in the hollow of his hipbones. Grigg swallowed his pity-- he didn’t suppose that Kaecilius would appreciate it. “Brought coffee. Oh, but you asked for water.” He blushed and turned to go, coffee still in hand.

“Thank you.” Kaecilius turned to him, the harsh features softened with a pleased expression. “I’ve missed the taste of coffee.” He took the cup and drank a deep draught, his eyes closed in pleasure. “It is a delight,” he said as he lowered the cup, “that my first taste of Earth is this.”

Grigg beamed at him. “I’m sure you’ve had better.”

Kaecilius turned to him, holding the cup with both hands. “Perhaps. When I was a sorcerer of Kamer-Taj, and could travel easily between continents, I would often indulge in a cup of dark roast from this little cafe in Addis Ababa run by a woman and her granddaughter. It was the best coffee I have ever had.” He paused and his eyes focused on Grigg’s. “Until now.”

Grigg looked away, charmed despite himself. “You are full of it, you know?”

“Am I?”

He cast around for a subject change to spare himself more blushing. “How did you travel between continents?”

Kaecilius accepted the subject change with grace, though he still smiled. “Portals. We opened portals, much like you would understand wormholes.”

“Star Trek? Or Dune?”

Kaecilius thought for a moment. “We do use a device called a sling ring to sustain portals, but the skill to open a portal is within the sorcerer, not the device. Star Trek uses verterons, which might be equivalent to sorcery, and neutrinos the stabilizing force of the sling ring… i think this is closer than Herbert’s concept of folding space, since the travel is instantaneous rather than requiring precognition to navigate.”

Grigg had gone glassy-eyed. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “I think I love you. I did not just say that. I’m…” He turned around. “I’m going to go make breakfast.” He closed the door on Kaecilius before he could say anything more stupid.

Breakfast was eggs cracked into hot chicken broth with rice. Grigg brought a tray into his bedroom with two huge bowls and the pot of coffee. Kaecilius was back in bed, the covers pulled up over his bony hips. Grigg sat beside him and settled the tray between them. They ate slowly, and in silence, because Kaecilius struggled with eating almost immediately upon lifting the spoon to his mouth. He took small sips of broth, eating the egg and rice a grain at a time. As he ate, Grigg spoke of his project, of the quantum computers in his care, and of what happened the night before when Kaecilius came through. Kaecilius listened without comment, focused on finishing his broth, until Grigg ran out of words. 

“So we are connected.”

“I don’t know that,” Grigg stammered. “It could be a coincidence, obviously.”

“Hmm.” Kaecilius put his bowl down. “I know much of magic, and less of science, but I have learned enough, both within this world and beyond it, that coincidences are far more often not chance at all, but universes and timelines speaking to each other.” Grigg’s forehead creased in a frown. “Are you so troubled that you could be connected to me?” His voice turned mocking. “A storybook villain?” 

“No, not at all.”

“Perhaps you are concerned that your own morality is called into question.”

Grigg shook his head, and then grudgingly, with bright red cheeks, tilted his chin up. “Maybe a little?”

Kaecilius nodded, seeming unconcerned. “It is only natural to fear yourself, and the depths you are capable of.” He placed his thin hand on Grigg’s knee. “But you need not worry, Grigg. If you think I am evil, then as my balance you must be good.”

Grigg rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think you’re evil.” 

“Ah.” Kaecilius smiled, slightly. “I see your problem then.” At that, he turned over and closed his eyes, and was quiet. Grigg took the empty bowls back to the tiny kitchen, full of confusing thoughts.

***

That day passed, and the next, and the next after that. Slowly Kaecilius grew stronger, eating more vegetables with his meals and then chicken from a local market, which was an odd black color but tasted fine. Despite Grigg’s mild concern about what the universe was trying to tell him about his own morality, he still slept in the same bed as Kaecilius, and more often than not they woke tangled together. Kaecilius’ nightmares didn’t go away but he grew better able to endure them. His skin healed, marked by Grigg’s handprints. 

It was when Kaecilius woke with a finely demarcated handprint on his slowly-rounding ass that Grigg finally had to face the reality that he was, possibly, becoming emotionally involved with the sorcerer. Kaecilius laughed when he saw it in the bathroom mirror. His skin was now a mostly uniform deep tea color, and Grigg couldn’t help but admire him, bronzed and graceful. His hair was growing out at a surprising rate, and was already at least two inches long, and wildly spiky silver-gold. He was handsome in a way that Grigg had not been prepared for, those impressive cheekbones more GQ than skeletal now that his body had filled out.

One night, about three weeks after the beginning, they were laying in the bed together, talking quietly, neither able to sleep. Grigg’s head was resting on Kaecilius’ chest, which had sprouted silver curls of wiry hair a few days before and was poking Grigg’s cheek pleasantly. Kaecilius had been speaking of his home in Denmark, and the family that he had lost. His hands would flex against Grigg, squeezing down on his shoulder blades or his ribcage as he spoke of things that pained him. In a quiet moment, Grigg took a deep breath. “We’ll need to figure out how to get you out of Hong Kong without a passport or visa. I guess you’ll want to go back to Denmark?”

Kaecilius tilted his head to look down at the top of Grigg’s curly hair. “There is nothing for me in Denmark, Grigg Harris.”

Grigg shifted against him, suddenly nervous. “Where will you go?”

Kaecilius was quiet for a long moment. His hands flexed against Grigg’s back again. “I thought perhaps I would… visit France. Or America.”

“America?”

“Specifically, I’ve heard that California is quite lovely. Although I would have nowhere to stay.” His voice was rough and uncertain, and Grigg found himself rising up on his elbows to look down at him. 

“I have a guest room,” he said softly.

“Ah. A guest room. That would be most kind of you.”

Grigg swallowed, his heart a little too wild for such soft voices. “Of course, it’s quite unpleasant. My ex kept her dogs in there. So I would never want to inflict that on… a friend?”

“Perhaps you have a couch available? For a friend?”

“You know, now that I think about it, I do have a large bed in the master bedroom. It’s far too large for one person, but… might do for two. If. You know.” Grigg was looking at Kaecilius’ chin now, and the silver stripe than ran through an otherwise bronze beard. “If my friend was inclined to share.”

“Are you asking me to share your bed, Grigg?” Kaecilius was smiling now, his eyes glimmering with the neon reflections outside the window.

“I… maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“Yes.” Grigg grinned at him. “Would you share my bed, Kae?”

“I would,” Kaecilius agreed readly. His voice turned husky, his eyes focused on Grigg’s mouth. “But I find myself greedy. What else would you share with me, Grigg?”

Grigg swallowed, hard. “I do have two controllers to my Playstation.”

Kaecilius stared hard at him until Grigg burst into laughter. Smiling, he rose up and rolled them both, pressing Grigg on his back and sinking down over him. “Would you share your mouth with me, Grigg Harris?”

Grigg took his head in both hands and pulled him downwards, arching his back and rising to meet him. Their mouths touched, and Grigg kissed his upper lip, sucking it in gently. Kaecilius breathed into his mouth, and then his hands came up behind Grigg’s head, fisting his hair carefully. Gentle became more urgent, as Grigg put his hands against Kaecilius’ skin with the purposefulness he had been craving for weeks. Kaecilius responded like he had never been touched before, pressing his body into Grigg’s hands and groaning soft into his mouth. They kissed until Kaecilius’ fragile, healing muscles were shaking with exhaustion, and then they settled into each other, Grigg never ceasing to stroke over Kaecilius’ skin, until sleep claimed them. 

In the morning they woke for the first time unselfconscious about being in each other’s arms. Grigg sighed with warm contentment against Kaecilius’ throat, and then leaned back with a different, heavier sigh. Kaecilius turned towards him, his fine brow creasing in concern. “Is there… do you regret?”

Grigg shook his head. “I was just… getting you out of China will be hard enough. Getting you into the States is going to be even more complicated.”

Kaecilius gazed fondly at him. “I’m glad you aren’t sorry about what is happening between us.” He fingered Grigg’s curls. “As for the other, I can solve all of your problems if you do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to steal a sling ring.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was so much fun to write. Thank you to those of you who sent love and enthusiasm and encouragement-- it means the world! Here's to many other adventures.

“You want me to what, now?”

Kaecilius sat up slowly, achingly, and fixed Grigg with a bright look, something Grigg was learning to recognise as his teacher look. Kae had told him, briefly, about the students he had nurtured and lost in his ill-fated bid to save the world from itself. It was a source of grief on top of regret, so after that first long night of holding Kaecilius close, Grigg avoided mentioning it. 

“Do you know what makes your quantum computers work?”

Grigg rubbed at his eye uncomfortably. He disliked this question-- it made him feel like a mad scientist, and not always in a chaotic good way. “Yes and no? Quantum computers use particles that can be one, zero, or both at the same time, which allows the qbit to be anywhere between one and zero at any given time. But no, because we don’t always know why the particles react with each other.”

“Infinite possibilities.”

“Yeah, but limited by the power of the processor.” For now, he thought.

“And if you could make a processor that could provide unlimited power?” There went Kae reading his mind again.

Grigg fell back against him, a dreamy grin lighting his face. “So many things.” He pondered, snuggling against Kaecilius’ ribcage. “Time travel. A working transporter for humans. Space travel.”

Kaecilius nudged him playfully. “Do you believe me when I say I have done all of these things, and many more?”

Grigg turned over and propped himself over Kaecilius’ lean body. They studied each other for several breaths, Kaecilius’ eyes soft under the scrutiny. Finally Grigg bowed his head to Kaecilius’ chest, snorting out a laugh, and pressed his lips to warm skin. “Fine, I’ll steal your ring. On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“Once you are well, you have to take me to that cafe with the best coffee in the world.”

“I would be pleased to introduce you to Hana and her granddaughter Ester. I think perhaps they would be equally pleased to meet you.”

“Oh?”

Kaecilius hummed agreement. “They were both always matchmaking, bringing new women to serve my coffee when I would visit.” He pressed a hand over his eyes. “It was kindly meant.”

“They didn’t want you to be alone.”

“As I said, they will be glad to meet you.” Grigg snuggled further into him, flushing with pleasure.

***

Grigg Harris had quite a long time to ponder just exactly how far he would go for love and science. By the end of his trip across the city to the Hong Kong Sanctum, he still hadn’t reached a satisfactory conclusion, beyond the obvious fact that larceny was on the list. Larceny, subterfuge, the misrepresentation of his person, and goodness knows what else he would be into by the time this was finished. Hopefully not jailbreaking.

Annie, who had been enthusiastically keeping up with the situation, and who like all good scientists liked a bit of breaking and entering every so often, assisted with the ID and the cover story. Grigg Harris was Martin Sorensen, looking for information about his uncle Kell Sorensen, who had vanished after the death of his wife, Adria, and their son Emil. Research had led him here but no further, and he was looking for any information about his uncle. It wouldn’t hold up to much scrutiny, but for reconnaissance it would have to do. Once he was in the Sanctum, his goal was to make a note of any sling rings, nick one if he could, and get the hell out of there. As plans go, it belonged in _Secret Spy Science_ along with the advertisements for X-Ray Specs and Sea Monkeys. He suppressed a sigh as the Sanctum came into view. One day he was going to have a good laugh about this, but today was not that day.

The Hong Kong Sanctum was a stylish four story building with a gracefully curved facade and an enormous porthole window that looked like an eye gazing upwards. Grigg walked right up to the front door and knocked. After a moment, the door was answered by a short, strong-looking black woman in a blue robe who gave him a subtle once-over and a mild smile. “May I help you?”

Grigg nodded. _Here goes everything,_ he thought. “My name is Martin Sorensen. I’m looking for my uncle Kell.” He held up a photo of Kae that had been photoshopped to within an inch of its life. A young, smiling man looked up from the photo, clearly recognisable as the sorcerer but a lifetime away. The woman inhaled sharply, but Grigg pressed on. “He disappeared after my aunt died, and we found this online…” He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a printed photograph of Kaecilius, taken by a brave photographer on the streets of Hong Kong before the world nearly ended. He smiled apologetically. “I don’t know what happened, but if you know anything, my mother would appreciate it.” There. Not the worst performance he had ever sweated bullets through. 

The woman nodded, her face now blank. “Wait here, Mr. Sorensen, if you don’t mind?” She didn’t exactly close the door in his face, but he was definitely left on the stoop. He turned around with a sigh, staring down at the picture in his hand. It had been worth a try. He let go of the charming image of coffee in Ethiopia with Kae and started to ponder what exactly he would need to do to create papers that would get Kae across borders.

But not five minutes passed before an Asian man with a wide, gentle face came to the door and opened it wide. He gave Grigg a generous looking-over, and then stepped aside. “Come in, Mr. Sorensen. My name is Wong, and I’m the curator here.I am afraid I don’t have good news for you.” Grigg nodded, bowing his head, and there on the man’s belt, tucked into a loop of woven cord, was the double ring Kae had described in detail. Grigg stepped inside, and the door closed behind him, shutting out the world.

***

Grigg was late. All day Kaecilius had alternated pacing, staring out the window, and drinking cup after cup of strong coffee. By the time the sun was turning the sky bright pollution orange, he was exhausted and worried and furious at himself for sending Grigg on such a mission. As the sky darkened and neon lights took over the job of lighting the city, he debated his options. How would he rescue the man when any association with himself would only damage his chances? In the state he was in, he had no physical and few magical resources. With his connection to Dorammu permanently severed his power was a trickle in a bowl to the torrent he had once wielded. He had no one else in the world to rely on. The aching loneliness of it, the pure idiocy of finding love only to immediately abandon it… Kaecilius groaned out loud at his own stupidity. 

One option was available to him, and it was a bitter one. He only hoped that the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj would see worth in his willingness to trade himself for Grigg. Even if it meant being locked in the mirror dimension for the rest of his life, it would still be better than any life he could live having left behind the man who had carried him in off the streets and kissed him so sweetly. Determined now, he sat on the bed, over-stressed muscles trembling, and began to tug on pants. 

Kaecilius got as far as the street, wrapped in Grigg’s warmest jumper and a pair of track pants with bright blue stripes down the side. His shaggy silvering hair was covered by a ball cap with a logo he didn’t recognise. He had no money; he doubted he would need any for a complete surrender. 

“Kae?”

Grigg was walking towards the door, backpack slung over one shoulder, holding a bag of food that smelled deliciously like sui mai and egg waffles. Kaecilius stared at him in distress. “You’re late,” he managed, his throat tight.

Grigg’s smile faded to concern. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize… It took me a while to repair the damage Annie wrought and I forget the time… Kae, I’m so sorry.” 

Kae took a deep, shuddering breath, relief soaking through his bones like sunlight. “You’re alright? They didn’t capture you and lock you in the mirror dimension?” Obviously they hadn’t. He shook his head as Grigg wrapped his arms around him, squeezing tightly. “Had you been taken…had you been lost…”

Grigg nosed against him. “Ye of little faith.” But he hugged Kae for a long time, feeling the weight of everything the sorcerer had lost leaning on them both in that moment. “How could I not come back to you?” He kissed Kae’s ear. They rocked together, clutching each other, until Kaecilius’ breathing eased. 

And then Kae’s stomach grumbled, and he pulled back slightly, eyes downcast. Grigg smiled against his cheek. “C’mon. I’m starving.” He slid a hand to the small of Kae’s back and guided him back into their little home. Kae slumped down wearlily into a kitchen chair while Grigg unpacked the bag of street food onto the table, shoving an egg custard into his mouth as he did so. “I’ve not eaten all day. Those sorcerers are relentless workaholics.” He settled in a chair, talking around his mouthful, crumbs flying everywhere. “Oh! I almost forgot.” He rustled in the bottom of the bag and set down the stolen sling ring with a clunk on the table. “Mission successful.”

Kae’s fingers curled into fists, his face telegraphing his utter surprise. “Grigg… How?”

Grigg grinned cheekily at him. “Well, they might have been having a little computer trouble, and I just happen to be pretty good at fixing networks.”

“You… broke their computers?”

“Well, Annie did that. She wants to go home to visit her folks in Manilla, ok? She’s afraid she’ll lose her visa if she crosses the border.” Kaecilius nodded, bemused but willing. “She hacked their network, and no offense, sorcerers may know a lot about traveling through alternate dimensions but they don’t know shit about network security.” He opened a carton of egg waffles with one hand. “Once I introduced myself, sorcerer Wong tried to google me, and he couldn’t get a line out. So I offered to fix it in return for any help they could give me on my ‘uncle.’”

Kaecilius took up a cardboard carton full of dumplings, but didn’t fold open the top. “Was your work well-rewarded?” he asked with caution.

“It was all very sanitized, actually. They mentioned that you were a student at Kamar-Taj, and that you had gotten mixed up in some bad sorcery, and that you died.” Grigg frowned. “It was hard to hear that, even knowing you were safe and alive. I didn’t have to pretend to be grieving”

Kae nodded, subdued, and opened the carton of sui mai rather than respond. They ate in silence, a slow blooming contentment settling over them both. Grigg scooted closer so that his knee was pressed against Kae’s thigh. 

“So…?”

Grigg grinned at him, a noodle hanging out of the side of his mouth. “So, once I heard about your death, I might have exaggerated my need for physical comfort. Slightly. And how could either of them turn down a plea for a hug?”

Kaecilius pressed his lips together to swallow a smile. “I am shocked and delighted at your skill as a pickpocket.”

Grigg buried his pleased embarrassment in another waffle. “I’m surprisingly flustered by your admiration of my skill at larceny.”

Kae picked up the ring, and slid it onto the pointer and middle finger of his left hand. It was loose over his knuckles, and he curled his fingers to seat it more firmly. Grigg stared at him, swallowing, suddenly nervous, “So, you aren’t going to disappear on me now, are you?”

Kaecilius looked up at him, his eyes wide. “When you didn’t come back, I wasn’t preparing to search for you. I was preparing to surrender myself, in hopes that they would set you free in exchange.”

They gazed solemnly at one another, and then Grigg stood and reached out his hand. “Come to bed?”

Kaecilius nodded, and followed Grigg, slipping the sling ring off his fingers and leaving it on the table. Time enough tomorrow, when now he had everything in the world right in his arms.

 _Had we but world enough, and time,_  
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.  
We would sit down and think which way  
To walk and pass our long love’s day.  
-Andrew Marvell

 

Epilogue:

Grigg stared in stunned fascination at the ring of sparks that Kaecilius drew in the air. “How does it work?”

“The power is in the sorcerer, but the strength to hold the portal open is in the ring.” Kae let the sparks fizzle out. He was looking more human every day now, and with his silver-gold hair flopping rakishly over one eye, distractingly handsome as well. Grigg caught himself staring more often than he would willingly admit. Now he shook himself and focused on Kae, who was now definitely smirking at him. “I will need your help to focus the ring on a place you know well.”

“What about my apartment in California? Is there a limit on distance?”

“Not at all. Only of familiarity. You must be able to picture the place in your mind.” He held up the ring, with the index finger of his left hand slipped into the rightmost ring, palm turned inward. “Fit your finger in next to mine.”

Grigg flashed instantly red. Kae gave him a stern look, but amused. “Concentrate or we will open a portal to somewhere we don’t want to be.” Grigg slipped the leftmost ring onto the index finger of his right hand, so that the backs of their hands were pressed together. “Now, picture your apartment in your mind. Choose a room that you know well, and focus on what it looks like, how it feels, the smells and the sounds.”

“How does this work, Kae? Is this… are you reading my mind?”

“I have never done this before, sharing like this.” He turned to gaze softly at Grigg. “I only know that we are connected, and that makes me believe that this will work.”

Grigg stared at him, and swallowed audibly. “Where no one has gone before. It’s an adventure,” he muttered, and then closed his eyes.

He felt… something. Warmth, a buzz that felt like Kae pressed up against his naked back when they were cozy in bed at night. Something like the whisper of his voice in his head. He focused hard on his kitchen, the open frame door that led from the hall, where he had stood many times during earthquakes. He could feel the moment it became perfectly clear in his mind, as the susurration of sparks crackled in his ear. “There,” Kae murmured. “Open your eyes, Grigg.”

Grigg opened his eyes and looked into his kitchen. White tiles gleamed back at him, and the flowers that he had forgotten, now dried, their petals a wrinkled drift on the counter. The California morning sun shone through the kitchen windows. Grigg found he had to swallow twice to clear his throat enough to speak.

“Is it real?”

“The only way to find out is to step through, Grigg Harris.” Kaecilius reached his hand across their bodies to twine his fingers with Grigg’s “Will you come with me?”

Grigg grinned at him, his face alight with joy, and squeezed Kae’s hand. They stepped through the portal together.


End file.
